Picking losers

By Tim Worstall | 1 September 2005

The London Daily Telegraph reported yesterday on the latest initiative from Jacques Chirac, President of France. Chirac yesterday has pledged to "help fund a new European internet search engine to rival Google and Yahoo as he railed against what he sees as the threat of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism."

Chirac's initiative might find him some support at home, but perhaps he should point his browser at www.google.fr. On Google France's homepage, it offers to filter out all non-francophone pages, even all non-French ones.

In a speech in Reims, Mr Chirac said: "We're engaged in a global competition for technological supremacy. In France, in Europe, it's our power that's at stake."

In other words, Chirac is saying that he wants to subsidize business for cultural reasons, but in reality it's because of "supremacy" and "power".

Mr Chirac's intention is to provide forgivable loans to a Franco-German "multimedia search engine for the internet" being developed by French group Thomson and Deutsche Telekom.

These are two companies not known for their expertise in web software or search algorithms. If they were likely to make a go of this new search engine, they would be able raise money from investors. The very fact they are after "forgivable loans" suggests the project will be a failure. There are countless search engines, but we use Google and Yahoo because they are actually very good. Is it realistic to believe that Thomson and Deutsche Telekom will come up with better algorithms faster than two of the most innovative companies on the planet?